


Let Us Melt Your Frozen Heart

by GhostRequiem



Series: Come Find Me [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Future Romantic Relationship, Guys wheres Tony?, JARVIS knows whats up, M/M, Panic Attack, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bruce Banner, Protective Hulk, Referenced Drowning, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 07:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19043518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostRequiem/pseuds/GhostRequiem
Summary: "Dr. Banner?"JARVIS' voice queried softly into the silence. Bruce glanced tiredly up from his tablet, having read the same page repeatedly, without being able to sleep or focus."Captain Rogers has just woken and appears to have had a nightmare. His heart rate is highly elevated and he isn't responding to my voice. I believe he's having a severe panic attack, sir."Bruce was stumbling out of his chair and to the door of his bedroom, sudden hesitancy slowing his feet. Steve had comforted him when he'd awoken from a nightmare of his mother's death. Would Steve want him to help? Would he-A mental shove startled him from his self-depreciating spiral.HMPH.Hulk rumbled, Bruce feeling a phantom gust of breath on the back of his head.Help Spangles. Hulk with you.





	Let Us Melt Your Frozen Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this before Endgame and was stupidly pleased that I might not have to explain myself regarding the two personalities "holding hands" to cooperate here.

With a strangled gasp, Steve Rogers bolted upright in bed. He clamped his teeth together, breath hissing out, hands grabbing at the blankets and sheets around him. Folding as another heaving sob fought its way from his throat, he pressed his forehead to his knees, desperately tightening his grip, sheets tearing easily. A low moan escaped him as he realized there would be no easy recovery, his breathing reaching normal-person hyperventilation levels. 

He could feel steel beams pressing heavily against his chest and thighs, pinning him mercilessly, his super-strength useless against the weight of a dying ship, his lungs filling with stabbing, frozen ocean-

_It’s not real! It’s not re-_

The nightmare-induced panic attack was sweeping him up and carrying him away. He had nothing to hold onto, nothing to stop the tide from dragging him out, nothing-

“Steve, I’m here. You’re here. Breathe with me.”

Steve barely registered that the physicist had come into the room, nor his climb onto the bed. He was helpless to resist being wrapped up and pulled back against an over-warm chest. Strong arms locked him against the other body, not careful with the super-soldier in the attempt to ground him. He fought to control his breathing, fought to pace himself and match the deep, even breathing behind him, but his shaky grip on reality was already lost. He felt himself being bodily pulled across a lap, his head tucked under a larger chin. 

Small details began filtering in at the realization. His eyes took in green-to-tan mottled skin. He was pressed in a lap much larger than his own, muscular thighs against his lower back and under his knees. As his gaze dragged upwards, he noted stretched pants, no shirt, coarse black chest hair. He struggled for a moment, overwhelmed by waves of icy cold filling his mouth and throat, before a large warm hand began soothing circles on his back. He felt the cold recede a fraction, enough for him to look up. The eyes that locked onto to his were a startling mix of rich brown and radioactive green. The mottled skin pattern was everywhere, usually the visual sign of the beginning of a transformation, but Dr. Banner didn’t seem to be growing any further. He stared back, a closed, unsure expression beginning to creep onto his face. 

“B-bruce? H-hulk?” Steve stammered, his throat too tight. He fought the urge to cough, his body shivering and teeth clenching to avoid chattering. He still wasn’t able to uncurl from the balled-up position, his own arms locking his chest to his knees. “I-I’m s-sorry I w-woke yo-” his apology was cut short as he was hefted easily out of bed and carried gently out of the room. The lights went from dim to a comfortable brightness, thanks to JARVIS. 

“Yes,” a quiet rumble came from above him, their voice deepened by Hulk and softened by Bruce. 

Steve looked again into those multicolored eyes as he was carried to the elevator. 

“Both. Bruce first, then both of us.” Their expression was a mix of concern and uncertainty. Steve’s breath caught, his mind reeling. 

Before he could process the information, the elevator’s doors opened to the doctor’s floor, and he was carried in through the bedroom and in to the bathroom. The AI continued to light their way, diffusing the area with soft warm light and revealing an enormous tub. Had Steve been himself, he would have rolled his eyes at Tony’s opulence but grinned at his kindness toward his lab partner and alter. 

Steve felt his body being shifted to being held with one arm, a detail that secretly soothed and equally ruffled him, as they reached out to turn the faucet on full blast, one large hand held under the water until satisfied with temperature. Dimly, Steve wanted to squirm away, to refuse this intimate gesture, but in his frozen, panic-addled state, he almost whined for the comfort being offered to him. Bruce/Hulk stepped carefully into the filling tub, pants and all, and Steve moaned the second the hot water hit his skin. He was slid into a similar position they’d been in while on the bed, only this time Steve was placed firmly across their folded legs, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and holding him tightly against their bare chest. 

The soldier felt a flush that had nothing to do with the hot water or the ever-present higher body temperature of Banner. He ducked his head, trying to hide the red creeping up his ears as the heat surrounding him began to melt away panic and even his breathing.

A huffed laugh responded, noting Steve’s sudden shyness. They cupped a large hand in the hot water, and poured it gently over his shoulders, back, and chest, careful to not get any on his head. Steve began to feel dizzy, telling himself it was the overwhelming heat of the bath and not the implication that Bruce and Hulk had joined hands to comfort him.

“How are you feeling?” Their words were clear, if slower, than Bruce’s usual patterns. 

“Better.” Steve swallowed, his throat loosening from its previous shutdown. “Thank you.”

He couldn’t deny that plunging him in to hot water, and throwing his heart for a loop had helped ground him in ways no breathing exercises would.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise that juicy Stark Spangled Banner is on its way.


End file.
